Tattle: Debbie's auction take: $8.3M & climbing

June 21, 2011|By Howard Gensler
  • Marilyn Monroe made this dress famous.

DEBBIE REYNOLDS had a pretty good weekend - or at least her creditors did.

The star of "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," mother of Carrie Fisher and ex-wife of Philadelphia crooner Eddie Fisher, auctioned off her collection of Hollywood memorabilia. Marilyn Monroe's vent-blown dress from "The Seven Year Itch" fetched $4.6 million.

The outfit worn by Audrey Hepburn in the Ascot race scene of "My Fair Lady" drew a $3.7 million bid.

The auction house, Profiles in History, was still calculating the sale's final tally yesterday.

Modest but still impressive bids at Saturday's auction in Beverly Hills and online included $140,000 for a guitar used by Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" and $100,000 for a "Cleopatra" headdress that adorned Elizabeth Taylor.

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Debbie, a still-spry 79, started collecting her costumes and props four decades ago at auctions held by major film studios, including MGM and Fox, and eventually acquired 3,500-plus items.

But the auction meant the end of her dream. After the closing of her memorabilia museum in Las Vegas, Debbie hoped to relocate the museum to Pigeon Forge, Tenn., near Dollywood. Last year, however, Reynolds' son, Todd Fisher, said that the project had to file for bankruptcy protection and that the collection would be sold to satisfy creditors.

More items are to be auctioned in December.

Take that, Hef

It's taken awhile for news of the nuptials to leak out, because paparazzi don't stalk 51-year-old character actor Doug Hutchison ("The Green Mile," "24"), but Hutchison married aspiring country singer Courtney Alexis Stodden on May 20 in Las Vegas.

She's 16.

She looks 35, but still.

"We're aware that our vast age difference is extremely controversial," the couple, speaking as one, told E! Online. "But we're very much in love and want to get the message out there that true love can be ageless."

Since even to marry in Vegas one has to be 18, Courtney's parents had to give their blessings.

"We are totally supportive of this marriage," mom Krista Stodden told RadarOnline.com. Mom said her daughter was a "good Christian girl" and "a virgin when she married Doug."

"Doug is a wonderful man and we love him," mom said.

And although Courtney looks as if she has a little tread on her tires and a little helium in her balloons, Mom says Courtney is all natural.

"She is a beautiful girl," she said. "She has real breasts, real lips; she's not plastic."

Tattbits

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